Evidence for a Particle Produced in Association with Weak Bosons and Decaying to a Bottom-Antibottom Quark Pair in Higgs Boson Searches at the Tevatron

Abstract

We combine searches by the CDF and D0 Collaborations for the associated production of a Higgs boson with a W or Z boson and subsequent decay of the Higgs boson to a bottom-antibottom quark pair. The data, originating from Fermilab Tevatron pp collisions at √s = 1.96 TeV, correspond to integrated luminosities of up to 9.7 fb(-1). The searches are conducted for a Higgs boson with mass in the range 100-150 GeV/c(2). We observe an excess of events in the data compared with the background predictions, which is most significant in the mass range between 120 and 135 GeV/c(2). The largest local significance is 3.3 standard deviations, corresponding to a global significance of 3.1 standard deviations. We interpret this as evidence for the presence of a new particle consistent with the standard model Higgs boson, which is produced in association with a weak vector boson and decays to a bottom-antibottom quark pair.

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Affiliated Institutions

• University of Wisconsin–Madison US
• Sorbonne Université FR
• Yale University US
• University of Padua IT
• University College London GB
• University of Göttingen DE
• Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro BR
• Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies FR
• University of Rochester US
• Northern Illinois University US
• Chonnam National University KR
• Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory US
• University of Kansas US
• Korea Institute of Science & Technology Information KR
• Duke University US
• Institute of Experimental Physics of the Slovak Academy of Sciences SK
• State University of New York US
• CEA Paris-Saclay FR
• Michigan State University US
• Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique FR
• Baylor University US
• University of Bologna IT
• Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati IT
• Helsinki Institute of Physics FI
• Instituto de Física de Cantabria ES
• University of Oklahoma US
• University of Freiburg DE
• Imperial College London GB
• University of Helsinki FI
• Universidad de Cantabria ES
• Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova IT
• University of Pisa IT
• Purdue University West Lafayette US
• University of Mississippi US
• Joint Institute for Nuclear Research RU
• Sungkyunkwan University KR
• Louisiana Tech University US
• Lancaster University GB
• Waseda University JP
• Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique et aux Énergies Alternatives FR
• Florida State University US
• Texas A&M University US
• Seoul National University KR
• Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory US
• Comenius University Bratislava SK
• Kyungpook National University KR
• University of Illinois Chicago US
• Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute RU
• Universidad de Los Andes CO
• Panjab University IN
• Rockefeller University US
• University of Nebraska–Lincoln US
• Jeonbuk National University KR
• Northeastern University US
• University of Oxford GB
• Boston University US
• Tata Institute of Fundamental Research IN
• The University of Texas at Arlington US
• University of Siena IT
• University of Chicago US
• University of Pittsburgh US
• Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l'Univers FR
• Université Clermont Auvergne FR
• University of Michigan US
• Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz DE
• Czech Technical University in Prague CZ
• Johns Hopkins University US
• Stony Brook University US
• Lomonosov Moscow State University RU
• Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare IT

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